Awaken

Essential Jewish Mindfulness
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  • Have you wondered what’s Jewish about mindfulness?
  • Have you meditated before, but wanted to add a Jewish dimension to your practice?
  • Are you curious how Jewish spirituality and mindfulness might benefit you?
  • Are you seeking a practical and accessible introduction to Jewish mysticism?

Join IJS for an introduction to Jewish mindfulness and spirituality. Whether you are new to mindfulness or are a longtime spiritual seeker, this five-week online course will explore a uniquely Jewish approach to meditation and spirituality that can support you to live with greater awareness, wholeness, resilience, and authenticity.

Awaken: Essential Jewish Mindfulness is an accessible and practical introduction to mindful Jewish living grounded in Jewish mysticism’s model of the “four worlds”—finding holiness in our bodies, emotions, thoughts, and spirit. Together, we’ll awaken to our essential divinity and help achieve a greater sense of wholeness.

Awaken: Essential Jewish Mindfulness will support you in this process by helping you to:

        • Become more attuned and awake to your inner life in its richness and subtlety
        • Grow in awareness of your body, emotions, thoughts and spirit as gateways to spiritual living
        • Live with greater intentionality, awareness, and presence
        • Experience yourself as an innately divine being held in the embrace of unconditional divine love
        • Develop habits of heart, mind, and body that support your capacity to practice self-care, respond wisely and compassionately to life’s challenges, and thrive
        • Learn foundational skills for cultivating and developing a personal Jewish spiritual practice grounded in mindfulness
You will explore all of this within a safe and supportive community of fellow seekers to hold you in the fullness of your humanity as you learn principles and practices of Jewish spirituality.

Testimonials

“This course completely exceeded my expectations. I am living in a town with a very small Jewish population and it was very meaningful to me to be able to connect to community like this.”

“What a beautiful introduction to IJS and organized Jewish spiritual learning. You both have such calming virtual presences and shared your wisdom in an inviting way. I feel like this has really lit a fire for me to explore more and be consistent in my personal practice and continue to find others to practice with.”

“Thank you thank you thank you. I feel very spiritually grounded and excited to continue learning about Jewish spirituality.”

“I’m not a beginner with the concepts introduced, or to Jewish meditation. And yet, it felt so fresh and new… I feel newly invigorated and inspired.”

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Meet Your Instructors

Rebecca Schisler

Rebecca is Core Faculty at IJS, a meditation teacher, artist, and Jewish educator. A devoted contemplative practitioner, she has led groups and taught classes and retreats with Or HaLev, Awakened Heart Project, Orot, Wilderness Torah, Pardes, and Stanford School of Medicine. She was previously the Director of Student Health & Well-being at Stanford University’s Hillel, and co-authored the Mahloket Matters Schools Curriculum with the Pardes Center for Jewish Educators. A student rabbi at ALEPH, Rebecca is passionate about integrating ancestral wisdom traditions with innovative approaches to personal and collective healing and liberation. She teaches Jewish spirituality as an embodied, holistic, and accessible path, with relevant and timely wisdom for all.

Rabbi Marc Margolius

As Vice President of Faculty and Program, Rabbi Marc Margolius directs the faculty and overall programming for IJS, and oversees programming for lay leaders and alumni of the Hevraya, the alumni of our Clergy Leadership Program. He hosts IJS’s online daily mindfulness meditation sessions and teaches Awareness in Action: Cultivating Character through Mindfulness and Middot, our online program in tikkun middot practice, integrating Jewish mindfulness with attention to core middot, character traits.

Previously, Marc served as rabbi at West End Synagogue in Manhattan and Congregation Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, PA, where he pioneered a Shabbat-centered model of congregational engagement. He developed and led the Legacy Heritage Innovation Project at the Legacy Heritage Fund from 2005-2010, an initiative to promote systemic educational change in congregations around the globe.

Long active in social justice activism, Marc is a graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and of Yale Law School and lives in New York City.

Rabbi Sam Feinsmith

As Senior Core Faculty at the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, Rabbi Sam Feinsmith directs the Clergy Leadership Program and teaches on the faculty of a variety of other programs. He has been immersed in Jewish contemplative living, learning, and teaching for over twenty years, conducting Jewish meditation workshops, programs, and retreats for children, teens, Jewish educators, and community leaders. He’s passionate about practicing and teaching meditation and making the spiritual teachings of Hasidism available to all. Sam lives on the land of the Council of the Three Fires – the Potowatami, Ojibwe, and Odawa tribes – currently known as Evanston, IL, with his wife Sarah-Bess and his daughter Elanit.